44 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PAET I. 



and features betrayed their northern origin. Rafalowitsch 1 

 also asserts that he recognized them by their fair skin in Derr, 

 lower Nubia. But when Duprat' asserts that Berbers, Arabs, 

 Turks, and Jews in North Africa have perfectly preserved 

 their characters in spite of the perfect equality of the condi- 

 tions in which they live, we must observe that this is scarcely 

 correct, and that there is no general equality of conditions, in 

 as much as Duprat considers the Moors who chiefly inhabit 

 cities to be unmixed Arabs. That upon the Mauritius, as 

 D'Unienville asserts, 3 the Creole- and Mozambique-Negroes, 

 Malgasches, Malay s,Telingas,Malabars, and Bengalese, are easily 

 to be distinguished as they have preserved their peculiarities, 

 does not prove anything against the influence of climate, since 

 it differs but little from that of their native country ; and from the 

 constant renewal of all slave populations, climate has hardly 

 been of sufficiently long continuance to have produced a change 

 in them, whilst, on the other hand, every individual tribe is dis- 

 tinguished from the others by language, manners, and modes 

 of life. 



No doubt many instances furnish us with evidence that 

 peculiarities of bodily formation which have persisted through 

 many generations are but very slowly altered ; but they are 

 not sufficient to invalidate the opposite doctrine, that in several 

 peoples of the same origin the physical characters have altered 

 by the influence of climatic conditions in combination with 

 extensive changes in diet and mode of life. Though there is 

 no regular increase in the darkness of the skins on approaching 

 the equator, still it can be proved that colour, like many other 

 physical peculiarities, depends partly on local conditions be- 

 sides geographical latitude. The facts, however, are not alto- 

 gether free from contradiction, so that definite rules on the 

 effect of climate can only be obtained from more extensive 

 observation. 



Mountaineers are usually of a lighter colour and more vigor- 

 ous than those of the same tribe inhabiting the valleys. The 



